


Him and Not Him

by moodymarshmallow



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-13 02:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymarshmallow/pseuds/moodymarshmallow





	Him and Not Him

Crisis has carved of him a caricature, all bandages and feathers like an ill stuffed mattress. Fitting, considering he’s full of something, but it’s not something soft and yielding, rather some spark of beautiful fury, a swirling mass of him and not him.

He has bled, for the right reasons, for the wrong ones, and he bleeds still into the Fade where he is azure and amber and most importantly he is Anders. He is not who he was or who he is, but an amalgam of both and nothing. There was a time when he was whole instead of over-full, when he was him rather than the mage mince pie that he is now, chopped up and reformed and mixed with something entirely different. Justice made a poor seasoning; all harsh and unyielding, like Seheron peppers or spindleweed tea. There was also a time when he was innocent—they took that from him, they took everything from him but his name. That he gave away.

What is most obvious though, is that no matter how full he is, he is always empty. There’s so much room in there that he could hold the entire world, or maybe just a sea of sarcastic smiles and a continent of terrible jokes. When they met, it was exhaustion and desperation. He has always been desperate.

“Look at me,” he wanted to say. “Look at this cavernous hollow and promise me that you can fill at least the smallest measure of it. I need that like I need my sanity, and right now I’m not sure that I have either, and if I spend another minute needing I might just become desire itself. Look at me like I’m alive, like I’m a human being. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He didn’t say that. Not in so many words.

He dreamed it in those brief moments where his mind was only his own, where Justice hushed or rested or did whatever Fade spirits do when they’re silent, he dreamed it as clearly as though he’d read the book on him. His chin would be rough, there would be scars, there would be soft spots too, silk on his skin where the rest was sandpaper. There would be warmth, but most of all it would be grounded and solid and hold him to a world where he felt increasingly unattached.

He was too big for a hawk or a falcon, maybe he was supposed to have been an eagle, but it didn’t sound right—it didn’t sing, it didn’t dance. He was just the right size for a Hawke, though, and maybe they grew their birds of prey bigger in Lothering—Ferelden had been a long time ago for both of them. No mage’s hands were supposed to be calloused like that, better stained with elfroot or lyrium, better glowing with crackling electricity or red with glowing heat. He had farmer’s hands, laborer’s hands, the hands of a man who knew what it was to work. He worked well. They could work well together. 


End file.
